Bible Verses About Prayer

The leaders of Mo'av and Midyan left, taking with them the payment for divining, came to Bil'am and spoke to him the words of Balak.

He said to them, "Stay here tonight, and I will bring you back whatever answer ADONAI tells me." So the princes of Mo'av stayed with Bil'am.

God came to Bil'am and said, "Who are these men with you?"

Bil'am said to God, "Balak the son of Tzippor, king of Mo'av, has sent me this message:

'The people who came out of Egypt have spread over the land; now, come and curse them for me; maybe I will be able to fight against them and drive them out.'"

he made his pronouncement: "Balak, the king of Mo'av, brings me from Aram, from the eastern hills, saying, 'Come, curse Ya'akov for me; come and denounce Isra'el.'

"How am I to curse those whom God has not cursed? How am I to denounce those whom ADONAI has not denounced?

"When they lie down they crouch like a lion, or like a lioness - who dares to rouse it? Blessed be all who bless you! Cursed be all who curse you!"

Balak blazed with fury against Bil'am. He struck his hands together and said to Bil'am, "I summoned you to curse my enemies. But here, you have done nothing but bless them - three times already!

'Adonai ELOHIM, you have begun to reveal your greatness to your servant, and your strong hand - for what other god is there in heaven or on earth that can do the works and mighty deeds that you do?

Please! Let me go across and see the good land on the other side of the Yarden, that wonderful hill-country and the L'vanon!'

For what great nation is there that has God as close to them as ADONAI our God is, whenever we call on him?

However, from there you will seek ADONAI your God; and you will find him if you search after him with all your heart and being.

In your distress, when all these things have come upon you, in the acharit-hayamim, you will return to ADONAI your God and listen to what he says;

for ADONAI your God is a merciful God. He will not fail you, destroy you, or forget the covenant with your ancestors which he swore to them.

Then I fell down before ADONAI, as I had the first time, for forty days and nights, during which time I neither ate food nor drank water, all because of the sin you committed by doing what was evil in the sight of ADONAI and thus provoking him.

"So I fell down before ADONAI for those forty days and nights; and I lay there; because ADONAI had said he would destroy you.

I prayed to ADONAI ; I said, 'Adonai ELOHIM! Don't destroy your people, your inheritance! You redeemed them through your greatness, you brought them out of Egypt with a strong hand!

Remember your servants Avraham, Yitz'chak and Ya'akov! Don't focus on the stubbornness of this people, or on their wickedness or on their sin.

Otherwise, the land you brought us out of will say, "It is because ADONAI wasn't able to bring them into the land he promised them and because he hated them that he has brought them out to kill them in the desert."

But in fact they are your people, your inheritance, whom you brought out by your great power and your outstretched arm.'

"When ADONAI your God brings you into the land you are entering in order to take possession of it, you are to put the blessing on Mount G'rizim and the curse on Mount 'Eival.

Both are west of the Yarden, in the direction of the sunset, in the land of the Kena'ani living in the 'Aravah, across from Gilgal, near the pistachio trees of Moreh.

That same day Moshe commissioned the people as follows:

"These are the ones who are to stand on Mount G'rizim and bless the people after you have crossed the Yarden: Shim'on, Levi, Y'hudah, Yissakhar, Yosef and Binyamin;